Shortly after 10 p.m. on Saturday, May 26th, a police car struck 62-year-old motorist Jose Landaverde in a Fontana intersection, the impact fatally injuring him. While heading northbound on Juniper Avenue, the marked patrol cruiser collided with Landaverde’s silver Honda, which was traveling westbound on Ceres Avenue at the time. Paramedics transported him to a hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries later that night. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is conducting an investigation of the crash.

“After a fatal accident, the victim’s family may pursue a wrongful death claim against the at-fault driver to hold him or her liable for their loss,” explained California personal injury lawyer James Ballidis.

Fontana accounted for 11 of the 192 fatalities and 644 of the 10,983 injuries suffered by motor vehicle occupants in collisions that occurred throughout San Bernardino County in 2009, according to the California Highway Patrol’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System. In a comparison of 56 cities with populations ranging in size from 100,001 to 250,000 residents, the California Office of Traffic Safety ranked Fontana 51st for fatal and injury crashes, indicating a low incidence of such incidents that year.

All of us at Allen, Flatt, Ballidis, and Leslie would like to offer our condolences to the family of Jose Landaverde, the man who was fatally injured when the police car struck his vehicle.

Resources for accident victims and their families, including books and articles on the process of filing an injury or a wrongful death claim, are available to the public free of charge through our office.